Hooks hang from the amplifiers. Blood curdling pop hooks. A distorted mess of reverb and, well, distortion of the guitar, the synth, even the drums, attack you like The Beatles are long gone. And they are, aren't they? And there are voices, shouting and singing, off key and on key, honest, earnest, fighting, pulling out knives like lovers breaking up and making love in unison. In this pit, or basement, or Andy Warhol museum, or loft, or Velvet Underground memorial... this is where we'll shovel dirt on the last rockstar's grave and sing songs with Times New Viking.The trio of Times New Viking make pop songs, as much as The Velvet Underground are nihilistic hippies. And probably more so, even. What has been beaten to death in articles and interviews about them that it already eschewed your elitist views? That they record their songs with a lo-fi buzz? The constant comparisons to Guided by Voices, Pavement, et al? That they signed to “major” indie label Matador, coming from Siltbreeze, and some bellyaching “sellout”? They play noise shows with actual songs? Being buzzed about by hipsters, and in turn, hated by the more snobbish bastards of whatever precious scene? Well, fuck all that. Forget all that shit and stop bitching, because when it comes down to it, you’re still not listening and still up to arms with your Pitchforks and Spins and NMEs and Rolling Stones. It’s disgusting.
Times New Viking heralds what it is to be musicians and artists, and at the same time it doesn’t escape them that what they do is a product once it is commercially available. Adam Elliot, drummer and co-vocalist of TNV, said in an interview with donewaiting.com, “I am proud it’s product. We are tapping into the field of product. But we still have control over it. It’s an idea. When you choose between two records at the store you are choosing a product. When you see us live, it’s not a product. If you come to my house to see a fine-art collage I made then it’s not product. But when I put it in a gallery and hang up flyers then its product. We are selling ideas.” As much as they do this with their own volition, with a very DIY aesthetic, it doesn’t get to their heads. They don’t start slinging shit about who is more punk than whom, just because they toured with their own money and time, playing crowds of a whooping forty people, because in the end, if its commercial, its product—no matter how high your mohawk is.
If asked to describe Times New Viking’s music, in music vernacular, it would still be pop music. Take away all these other baggage you’ve heard about them, and what you hear is still pop music ala The Clean. But it’s pop with a serrated edge. If I may be so bold, they’re picking up where the Velvets left off. It’s nihilistic, but in their nihilism, you find beauty. Amidst all the whips and jangles, Warhol and Vinyl, the Exploding Plastic Inevitable, there is real beauty and majesty packed within a minute and a half of song. 
And as for noise and the lo-fi debacle, shitty mics are shitty mics. When asked about this, once again, Elliott responds, “We just record it and that’s how it comes out. And that’s how it sounds. In a way the process is anti-. But we don’t have computers. We are not the computer type band. I went to school to learn how to make Intaglio-prints. Fucking old, archaic, dead product. No one makes Itaglio-prints for their original purpose. We never recorded our songs to hear a professional band. We record our songs to document the afternoon we were there. To document the song. The lo-fi works because we have shitty-ass equipment. We have shitty mics. We don’t go out and buy better mics. Cause we have mics. Why would we buy more mics?” Couldn’t have said it better myself.
I could go on and on about aesthetics and beliefs and all these other nonsense, but in the vein of “because in the end,” it doesn’t matter. Put your ear to the ground. If anything, underneath TNV’s nihilistic views, they are optimists. You could hear it with what they do. And just like their music, you need to listen to hear it, because underneath all the noise rubble (nihilism) there are pop gems (optimism). And if you listen really, really closely, you could hear postmodernism rattling its cage.
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